


The Eleven-Day Empire

by Brambleshadow_of_WindClan



Series: The Faction Paradox Protocols [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Faction Paradox - Various Authors
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, Survival Horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-06-06 11:08:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6751576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brambleshadow_of_WindClan/pseuds/Brambleshadow_of_WindClan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even before the outbreak of the "War in Heaven", Faction Paradox was regarded as the most unpredictable (and opportunistic) of the time-active powers. Aware of the precarious nature of history—but under no obligation to protect it— while the other Great Houses were still attempting to uphold a "universal order", the Faction was following its own, far more ambiguous, protocols. Ruthless, secretive and at times difficult to understand, it's hardly surprising that the Faction should have eventually found itself under siege from its rival powers...</p><p>Novelization of The Faction Paradox Protocols audio #1: <i>The Eleven-Day Empire.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> All dialogue and plot comes from the script for _The Eleven-Day Empire_ , written by Lawrence Miles. Since I am working with a draft version of the script, parts of this have been cut from the final audio play.
> 
> I'm just doing this for fun, and for those who are unable to listen to the audios.

# Prologue

 

Let's be honest: it’s the stupid questions in life that get the best answers. For example, here's some history for you. See what you make of it.

On September the fourteenth, 1752, the English lost eleven days out of their calendar. It had to happen, sooner or later. England’s calendar was eleven days out from the rest of Europe, so the great thinkers of the day... that'll be the philosophers and the civil servants, you know the type... they decided to put the date forward by a week and a half. The people went to bed on September the second, and when they woke up it was the fourteenth. Simple. So, the obvious question—the stupid question—is: what happened to the missing eleven days?

Those great thinkers I mentioned probably wouldn't have had an answer to that, which is a shame, because the answer's this. The missing days were taken by Faction Paradox.

Well, that’s not really a big surprise, is it? Out of all the Great Houses... the Great Houses being the ones who’ve made it their business to look after space-time in general, the ones who’ve insisted on running history behind the scenes since before us poor human sods crawled up out of the oceans... out of all the Great Houses, Faction Paradox was the only one that really knew how to step over the line. I mean, while the others were all busy with their time machines and their nice shiny bits of technology, the Faction was busy calling on the spirits of eternal darkness and sacrificing raw virgins, just for a laugh. So when the Faction's people got themselves thrown out of polite society and kicked off the old homeworld, they needed somewhere else to set up shop. Which is why they took those eleven days out of English history, and locked them in a little bubble of time outside of the rest of the universe, where almost nobody else could get at it.

And of course, that was where we all lived. In the Eleven-Day Empire. In a little ghost-city that—back in the real world—would have been called London. In a timezone all to ourselves, where the buildings were made out of shadows and the sky was the colour of blood twenty-four hours a day. Cut off from the other Houses, and cut off from the rest of history, at least until the elders needed to pop out and recruit some new family members from the universe outside.

So. Think of this story as the answer to a stupid question. The story of Faction Paradox, the story of the Eleven-Day Empire, but most of all the story of a girl who called herself Justine. Just one of a thousand little Cousins who'd been drafted into the family estate.

 Justine's the important one here. Try to keep that in mind.


	2. Chapter 2

# Chapter One

 

The chimes of Big Ben sounded some way in the distance. A faint wind picked up, ruffling the skirts of a lone figure carrying a sack that made its way across the barren terrain on the edge of the city where nobody ever went. Nobody human, anyway. There were things living in the Eleven-Day Empire even _before_ the Faction settled down there, after all.

Eventually, the chimes of Big Ben fell silent as the human figure approached a cave.

“Hello?” she called out. Her voice was cultured, English. Long red hair was bunched up at the base of her neck, the color standing out against the paleness of her skin and her green eyes.

The only response was the faint whisper of the wind.

“You can hear me, I hope. I was sent by the House. They’d like... we’d like your counsel. If it’s convenient.” She paused. “Here.”

Something soft and soggy slapped against the floor. Then she emptied the whole sack.

“They told me I should bring meat...”

Suddenly, there was a great flapping in the air: the sound of huge wings beating, drawing closer. Whatever it was, there was more than one of them.

“Oh,” the young woman said, slightly taken aback.

The beating of wings grew louder, then slowed down as the large vulture-like creatures landed.

“Good morning,” she said, uncertain. “You must be the Unkindnesses. I trust I’m not inconveniencing you... gentlemen?” No response; she cleared her throat. “My name is Jus... my name is Cousin Justine. I’ve come here on behalf of Faction Paradox. From Parliament.”

One of the Unkindnesses cocked its head, studied her with a beady gaze. “Future.” Its voice was deep, echoing, scraped like gravel.

“I'm sorry?” Justine said.

“Faction wants the future. Little Cousin wants the future. Yes?”

“We understand... I mean, I've been told...”

“We know the future,” a second Unkindness said. Its voice was higher than the first. “Little Cousin Justine. Little witch-Cousin.”

“I beg your pardon?

“Meat. Give us meat.”

“Yes, of course. It’s here.” Justine gestured to the meat she’d brought, currently lying on the floor. The Unkindnesses’ flapping became a little more excited; their eager growls and snarls filled the air as they crowded closer to the offering.

“It’s still on the, ahh... on the carcass,” Justine said. “I understand that’s the way you like it.”

“Meat,” the third Unkindness growled. “Need meat.”

“It’s a dodo,” Justine informed them. “They’re very rare.”

“Dodo?”

“From the eighteenth century. I... we thought you’d like it.”

“Dodo,” the second Unkindness warbled. “Death-bird.”

“Extinction-totem,” added the first.

“I'm sorry?” Justine blinked in confusion.

“Says more about you than about us,” the first Unkindness continued. “Little Cousin.”

“What do you mean?”

“You want us to tell you. Tell you the future.”

“We understand you have certain powers. Yes.”

“Think you know the future already, little witch-Cousin. Think you already see it. Death and extinction. You chose dodo to bring us. Little witch-Cousin already knows.”

Justine bristled. “Please stop calling me that. I’m not a witch.”

The Unkindness’s voice turned sly. “No? Maybe little Cousin has witch-flesh on her bones. Maybe this is why the Faction takes her in.”

“I came here as a representative of my House,” Justine said primly. “What kind of flesh I have is none of your business.”

“Dodo-flesh. We like your dodo-flesh,” the second Unkindness purred.

“Rip it. Rip it open,” the third hissed.

The bird-like creatures tore at the dodo’s flesh, nibbled, ripped to get at the organs inside. They went on like this for a while, and Justine averted her gaze. After a few minutes, the chewing noises stopped.

“There,” the first Unkindness said, gesturing with its head. “The future. See it?”

Justine stepped closer, not quite bending down just yet, and focused her gaze on where the Unkindness was pointing. “You mean... the entrails? The entrails of the bird? Is that what I'm supposed to be looking at?”

“Not entrails,” it corrected her. “Food. Food for the future. Look.”

Justine straightened and stepped back. “I'm sorry. I don't know anything about fortune-telling,” she said hurriedly. “You'll have to explain it to me.”

“Lying,” the Unkindness growled.

Justine’s voice skittered up a half-step. “What?”

“You know, little Cousin. You see it too.”

Her voice turned frosty. “I see. Well, obviously we're wasting each-others’ time.” She turned to leave. “You evidently don’t have anything to tell the House, so if you'll excuse me—”

“Empire falling.”

Justine paused, shocked, and slowly turned back to face the Unkindness. “What did you say?”

“Empire in flames. Falling. Burning.”

“You mean... our Empire? The House?”

The second Unkindness crooned, “Ladybird. Ladybird. Fly away home. Your house is on fire. Your children are gone.”

“You’re not making any sense—”

“Shh!” the first Unkindness hissed. “Listen. Listen.”

The Unkindnesses quieted down, not shuffling and flapping as much as they were. In the background, Justine became aware of a new sound. It was distant, but it sounded like shellfire. There was the impression of explosions. The noise became more pronounced as she listened to it.

“That noise—” she said, shocked.

“Ladybird, ladybird,” the second Unkindness began.

“Fly away home,” the third finished.

Her voice rose in pitch as the horror and realization dawned on her. “It’s coming from Parliament. Something’s happening in Parliament.”

“Empires falling,” the first Unkindness confirmed.

“Are we being attacked?” Justine asked it sharply. “Is that what you were trying to say?”

In the distance, more explosions could be heard.

“Fly. Fly away,” the second Unkindness crooned.

“Yes.” She nodded. “Yes, of course.” Justine began to walk out of the cave, then paused and turned back again. “You, ah... you're not going to eat the dodo?”

“Eat? Dodo?”

“Never.”

“Not kosha. Disgusting.”

“Fly away Justine. Fly away.”

So she did. She ran without looking back.

***

The ground outside the Parliament building shook with the explosions of shellfire, the sound mixing with the occasional energy-weapon discharge. Inside the tower, footsteps hurriedly crossed a floor as a young woman in her early twenties joined the older man at the window.

“Godfather?” she called out in the background, then moved closer. “Godfather Morlock? Are you okay?”

He pretended to consider it. “Hmm. Well, my body temperature's ninety-eight-point-six, my pulse is up to a hundred and thirty per minute, and I've got a slight touch of gastric enterisis, but other than that I seem to be in one piece. As well as can be expected, under the circumstances.”

“Oh. Right.” She couldn’t shake the surprise at how casually he was treating this from her voice.

“Never ask a doctor how he is, Cousin Eliza,” Godfather Morlock said. “You’ll receive an answer in tedious detail. Are you aware, for example, that you’ve breathed in exactly twenty-nine times since you came in? You'll hyperventilate, if you're not careful.”

She laughed a little. “Yeah, well, we're kind of under attack here—”

“Thank you, Cousin, but I was aware of that. The view’s quite spectacular. Come and stand here, you can even see the markings on the attack craft.”

“Look, we can’t stay here,” Eliza said quickly, desperately. “The tower's too big a target, they’ll be—”

“The tower, Eliza,” Morlock interrupted, “has already survived a good two-hundred years of abuse. It has in the real London, anyway, and I don't see why our version should be any different. I rather think it’ll take more than this to bring Big Ben crashing down around our ears. Tell me, how's the rest of the city? Or are they just attacking Parliament?”

Her answer was rushed: “The city centre. Traflagar Square’s gone. They just came out of nowhere and started shooting. Look, if we don't get out of here—”

Morlock, however, remained infuriatingly calm. “Curious, isn’t it? Who’d want to attack our little eleven-day world, I wonder?” he mused.

“Well... I don't know. One of the other Houses, probably. Listen—”

“One of the other Houses,” Morlock cut in. “You’d think that, wouldn't you? You’d think they’d be the only ones who could get into the Empire in the first place. But I’ve never seen a House use attack craft like those. Very crude. Very crude indeed. Great leaden lumpy things. What about the statue?”

Eliza looked confused for a moment. “Statue?”

“The statue of the Grandfather. In Trafalgar Square. What happened to it?”

“It’s gone. It’s all gone.”

“Pity. Always rather liked it. You know... it’s almost like seeing a corpse being dissected.”

Eliza blinked, completely thrown by the turn the conversation had taken. “What is?”

“Watching the attack from up here. Seeing it through the glass of the clock-face. Just look. The numbers on the dial. The way they cut the landscape into twelve neat little segments. The way they divide up the attack. It’s like some sort of anatomical diagram. The precision of it all... still, I don’t suppose that’s my department, is it? I presume Godfather Sabbath’s already rounding up the troops for the big counter-assault.”

“He’s organizing the flying machines,” Eliza said. “I'm supposed to be getting ready, he only sent me here to make sure you weren’t... I mean, he was worried about you.”

“And is Cousin Justine back yet?”

“Justine? What’s Justine got to do with anything?”

“It’s a simple enough question. And don’t look out through the glass while you’re giving me your answer. There’s an attack vehicle on a collision course with the tower, and I think it might distract you.”

Despite his warning, Eliza looked. “Oh God.”

Just outside the window came a monster explosion from the ship en route to the tower. Morlock observed it with mild interest. “Hmm. Blew up just in the nick of time. One-point-six seconds later, and it would've hit us. Looks like Sabbath's got his forces mobilized already.”

Eliza’s voice turned urgent. “Listen, I'm supposed to be with them. They told me to make sure you—”

“To make sure I'm not senile enough to stand here talking while the enemy takes the building to pieces. I appreciate the effort. Now, you'd better be getting along, hand't you?”

“You’re staying here?” Worry flitted over her face.

“Don’t worry about me just yet, Cousin. It’ll be at least four-and-a-half minutes before any of them even scratch the clocktower.”

If that was his attempt at sounding reassuring, it wasn’t quite working. “How do you know?” Eliza asked.

Morlock sent her off with a careless wave of his hand. “Oh, I know a thing or two about anatomical diagrams. Goodbye, Eliza.”


End file.
